


This Means (Cupcake) War

by lindenmae



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-12
Updated: 2011-12-12
Packaged: 2017-10-27 05:49:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/292308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lindenmae/pseuds/lindenmae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Arthur can hold a grudge like nobody's business, Eames woos with fondant, Dom makes terrible puns, Nash isn't a bad guy, and Saito owns the Food Network.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Means (Cupcake) War

**Author's Note:**

> Cupcake Wars AU!!  What follows is pure and delicious crack.  All cupcakes mentioned herein are probably inedible and I do not suggest anyone try to recreate them unless you are a far better baker than I, in which case let me know how they turn out.  No real people were harmed in the making of this fic.  There are probably not Pterodactyls in New Guinea.
> 
> originally posted as a fill for [this](http://inception-kink.livejournal.com/19632.html?thread=46214576#t46214576) prompt on the kinkmeme.
> 
> I don't own Inception or any of its characters.

“No, Dom, just… no. No.”

“It’s a great opportunity, Arthur. Give it a chance.”

“I fail to see how this _opportunity_ benefits me in any way.”

Dom huffs in Arthur’s ear. It’s probably meant to sound long-suffering and accompanied by Dom Cobb’s infamous squint, but through the speaker of Arthur’s cell phone it only sounds like a random burst of static. Arthur pulls the phone from his ear and glares at it, mouth twisting up with distaste. He’s seen Dom play the martyr enough times to put a mental picture to the sound and it's really not very pretty.

“This is important, Arthur.”

“Not to me.” Arthur distracts himself from the conversation by bending down to adjust the already perfect rows of fruit tarts creating a delectable confectionary rainbow beneath the glass dome of the front counter of his primary bakery.

“Would it matter at all to you if I said that it’s important to _me_?”

“Not really. Don’t you have your kids this weekend? Shouldn’t you be ruining their lives instead of mine?”

“No, I don’t and I resent that. Look, Arthur, Saito’s already green lit the idea. This episode is the perfect way to jumpstart the new show. Chef Ea-“

“DON’T say his name, Dom.”

“Jesus Christ. He Who Shall Not Be Named is getting a show. That part is settled, but Saito doesn’t want to just toss him into the lineup. Elimination shows are what’s _in_ right now. Ea-“

“DOM!”

“ _Eames_ does cupcakes, so obviously a special episode of Cupcake Wars is the perfect way to get his face and personality out there.”

“But why me, Dom? Why do I have to compete in this farce? I’m a judge, I should be spared this level of humiliation.”

“Please, Arthur. You’re the judge everybody loves to hate. People will watch this episode just to see if you can put your cupcakes where your mouth is.”

“That was terrible. Never speak again as penance for that horrifying attempt at a pun.”

“Ariadne and Yusuf are already lined up to compete as well. It’s going to be great for ratings.”

Arthur turns the last blueberry and brie tart a half a centimeter counter-clockwise and straightens, furrowing his brow. “Ariadne makes twenty minute meals for under ten dollars and the last episode of Yusuf’s show I watched was half an hour on how to handle raw chicken, not _cook_ it, just how to handle it while still raw. What the hell is either of them doing in a baking competition?”

“Losing in the first round. This is about you and Ea-“

“Dom, I swear.”

“You are a grown man, Arthur.”

“Really? Was it your evil immature twin, then, that was practically begging me to egg his estranged wife’s house two nights ago?”

“Fucking A, _fine_. This is about you and Lord-fucking-Voldemort.  Ariadne and Yusuf lose in the first round and you and Voldemort get automatic celebrity assistants. Then you do the next two rounds as usual, except in the third round, instead of you both competing to present at the same function, you’ll be preparing displays themed to your own personal charities.”

“I don’t want to do it.”

“C’mon, Arthur! Just think! You could get your own show out of this!”

“Saito’s offered me my own show on six separate occasions, which you know because he made you the go-between the first five times. I was not swayed by your groveling then and I will not be swayed by it now. I have no desire to be “The Bobby Flay of baked goods” as Saito so eloquently put it the last time.”

There’s a long and pregnant silence on the other end of the connection and Arthur has to pull the phone from his ear again to check the screen and make sure that Dom hasn’t hung up on him. This kind of silence indicates a level five squint – not a good sign.

“Any charity that you want, Arthur. The WWF for instance. Think about the penguins, Arthur.”

“Damn you. How dare you bring penguins into this. They are nature's gentlemen.”

“Start thinking about your cupcakes, Arthur. Saito doesn’t want to give Chef Eames his own show just because he’s pretty.”

“GODDAMNIT DOM”  
Dom has this way of getting what he wants from people and he’s been able to get Arthur to do what he says ever since they were children making mud pies in his backyard. So as soon as Arthur presses ‘end’ on the conversation, he _does_ start thinking about his cupcakes. If he _has_ to do this, he is _not_ going to lose. Not to Chef Eames.

…

He’s still thinking about them two days later when it becomes abundantly clear that life is not, in fact, playing some cruel joke on him. He’s hunched over a well-worn moleskin at his desk in the back, brow furrowed and scribbling furiously, the paper worn completely through in some parts, when the bell above the front door tinkles. The door is unlocked, yes, but the sign is most definitely flipped to “Closed” and Nash isn’t due back from his lunch break for another half an hour. He should probably be more surprised than he is to find Ariadne standing in the middle of his shop when he storms to the front. She pulls an obnoxiously over-sized pair of sunglasses from her face and a dainty floral scarf from over her hair and smiles brightly at him despite his glare.

  
“If you’re going for the Hitchcock heroine look, you’ll need a blonde wig.”

“What? No. I’m _incognito_.”

“Why?”

“Duh, if people see me in your shop and then see us working together on the show, they’ll think it’s rigged!”

“It is rigged.”

“But the viewers don’t need to know that! Oh my God, Arthur, you have no idea how reality T.V. works at all, do you?”

Arthur’s mind has already started wandering back to his recipes. “Why are you here?”

Ariadne reties her scarf around her neck and eyes a tray of raspberry almond blondies set out on the back counter, unfazed by Arthur’s abruptness. “I need your help. I’m well aware that I’m not going to make it past the first round, but I’d rather not get _completely_ creamed. But they’re actually not going to tell us what the ingredients are until right before! What if it’s something completely off the wall? What if it’s _pufferfish_? I can’t make a cupcake out of fish, Arthur.”

“It’s called _fugu_ when it’s prepared and that’s not what it’s going to be, Ariadne. Fugu is poisonous and can only be handled by chefs who’ve undergone years of training.”

Ariadne plants her hands on her hips, narrowing her eyes. “Do you have to be so literal? Fine, what if it’s something like corn?”

“Cornbread cupcake with honey buttercream frosting,” Arthur responds without missing a beat. Ariadne’s eyebrows rise in surprise and then almost immediately furrow in confusion.

“So what, a cornbread muffin with frosting?”

“ _No_. You just want it to have the taste of cornbread, maybe mix a little cornmeal and some kernels in with the batter for texture, but it’s still a cupcake. Mix applesauce and honey together and use that in the batter instead of oil, it’ll keep it moist and make it sweet without it tasting like you dumped a pound of sugar into a bowl of creamed corn, and you won’t feel the need to pair it with chili.”

“See! I could never make that!”

“What _can_ you make?”

“Anything Betty Crocker can make.” She doesn’t look ashamed at all.

Arthur barely manages to tamp down a bubble of hysterical laughter. “ _Why do you have your own show_?”

Ariadne glares at him, hands still planted firmly on her hips. “Because I’m fucking efficient, that’s why.”

“Okay, okay fine.  But what makes you so certain that you and I are going to be paired up?”

“First of all, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Two thousand cupcakes in two hours? Believe me, you _want_ me as your partner. Second, I don’t even know how to spell fondit let alone do anything with it.”

“It’s fond _ant_.”

“Point made. Yusuf probably knows the exact chemical makeup of the stuff. He’s probably already re-working the compound in order to make better, faster fondant for Ea-“

Arthur holds up a finger, bitchface in place. “That name is taboo in this shop.”

Ariadne’s gaze was wandering back to the blondies as she spoke but when Arthur interrupts her, it snaps back to him. “What, _really?_

She laughs like she thinks Arthur is joking, but he jerks his thumb over his shoulder at the sign tacked to the wall above his head. It’s the standard ‘We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone’ sign, except where Arthur has scrawled ‘ _especially Chef Eames_ ’ in red sharpie. ‘Chef Eames’ is underlined three times.

“Oh my God, you’re serious. Oh, this is going to be incredible. I love real drama! I have to go do my show, but I’ll be back later this week to learn your recipes. We’re so gonna rock this.”

Arthur expects her to leave then, and he starts to shift awkwardly when she doesn’t. He’s aware that he’s not the most social creature in the world, but he’s not a hermit either and last he checked when someone says they’re going to go, they usually do. Then her eyes shift pointedly to the tray behind him and he rolls his own. He grabs a blondie off the tray with some wax paper and drips some fudge over it before leaning over the counter to slap it into her hand.

“Here, now go away.”

Ariadne beams and flips the hood up on her jacket – Arthur’s not sure why she didn’t just do that in the first place instead of going to all the trouble to wrap her scarf around her hair – and turns to the door.

“By the way, you might want to rethink that sign. That’s seriously just giving Eames free publicity. Bye, Arthur!”

“My customers are dogs, Ariadne. They’re loyal! Curiosity’s not going to kill them by leading them to that faker’s door!” He yells after her but only succeeds in getting queer looks from an old couple on the sidewalk. He offers them both free blondies.

Once the old couple is gone and Ariadne is completely out of sight of the shop, Arthur pulls the sign off the wall and starts scrubbing furiously at the sharpie with his most abrasive all-purpose cleaner.

...

Two weeks later, with filming looming threateningly over his head, Arthur finally comes to grips with the fact that this is not some wildly unfunny practical joke Dom is playing on him. He’s been dutifully preparing despite still hoping each morning he’ll wake up and the entire thing will have been a terrible dream. He’s not about to lose just because he’s in denial.

Today he’s hiding out in his office, whisper-yelling at Dom on his phone while Nash and Ariadne are up to their arms in batter in the kitchen. Nash’s hair keeps falling into his face and there are chocolate smudges on his forehead from where he’s tried to push it back. Ariadne, on the other hand, looks like she did a swan-dive into the flour. She’s covered in it and laughing and Nash is smiling. They look like they’re having fun.

Arthur is going to have to put a stop to that just as soon as he finishes dealing with Dom.

“Do you hate me? Is this because I won’t help you prank Mal? Is it because I laughed when Toby Anderson spilled his apple juice in your lap and told everyone you peed yourself when we were eight?”

“I have admitted that I was motivated by immature desires for petty revenge against my wife-“

“Estranged wife.”

“Asshole. You deserve this for laughing _and_ for that comment right there. But I told you, I’m not trying to get back at your for anything.”

“Then why are you _punishing me_?”

“Do you want some cheese with that whine, Arthur? Or should I just go ahead and call the whambulance?”

“I hate you.”

“I have small children. I am immune to whining. I can’t even hear voices above a certain pitch anymore.”

Arthur steps out of the doorway and nudges the door closed so Nash and Ariadne won’t see in if they bother to look, and pulls a key out of his pocket. He fits it in the padlock at the end of a heavy chain wrapped around the steel handles of an industrial fridge. The fridge used to hold the results of Arthur’s newest recipes – the ones that didn’t immediately get thrown in the trash- and when Nash first saw the chain, he’d jokingly asked if Arthur was keeping a dead body inside of it instead. When Arthur had done nothing but glare at him, Nash had gotten shifty and been on his best behavior for an entire week. He’d even secretly gone to Eames’s bakery to make sure the man was still alive. Arthur felt oddly flattered at Nash’s belief in his ability to successfully off a prominent local celebrity.

“We need to discuss the judges panel. I want Mal off of it. It’s only fair.”

“You can’t kick Mal off the panel! She’s the only one the audience will recognize.”

“But she hates me!”

“She doesn’t _hate_ you…”

“It’s your fault she hates me! I’m collateral damage from your divorce!”

“It’s a _trial separation_!”

“She undermines everything I say on the show. She’ll say she hates my cupcakes out of spite!”

“She plays it up because the audience likes to watch you guys bicker. She is a beautiful and professional woman who respects you and your work and maybe hates you a little bit because you’re my best friend, but I can promise you that will not color her judgment on the show.”

“Do you think that kissing her ass when she can’t even hear you is going to help your cause?”

“My kids are here. They’re as good as tape recorders.”

Arthur growls low in his throat and drops the heavy chain on his desk before pulling open the doors to the fridge. There is no dead body, but Arthur considers what _is_ in there much worse and is significantly more embarrassed by it.

“Fine. Mal stays. Who’s replacing me?”

“Oh! You’ll like this. Fischer.”

“Fischer…”

“ _Robert_ Fischer.”

“That does make me feel somewhat better. Fischer’s given me some of my best reviews.”

“Somewhat? Please, the man would eat custard out of your ass.”

“That’s vulgar. I thought your kids were there.”

“They’re in the yard.”

“Were they in the yard when you were singing Mal’s praises?”

“Irrelevant.”

The bell over the door chimes and Ariadne calls out that he’s got a package, her voice tapering off at the end.

“Dom, I’ve gotta go.”

Arthur hangs up without waiting for Dom to say goodbye and rushes out to the front to grab the box before Ariadne can get too nosy. He tries to hide the awful paisley pattern on the otherwise white bakery box with his arms, but Ariadne’s eyes are already beginning to narrow in suspicion.

“Nash, put on a damn hairnet!” He yells as he speed-walks back to his office, slamming the door behind him. He can still hear Nash muttering about looking like a lunch lady even with it closed.

Arthur carefully places the box on his desk and opens it, then gently lifts the cupcake inside of it.

“Was that from _Forging Cupcakes_?!” Ariadne’s voice is muffled by the door but Arthur can hear the surprise in it. “But that’s Eames’s shop! I thought he hated Eames!”

Arthur tries to tune her out as he inspects the pastry in his hand. The cake looks like it might be strawberry or raspberry- it's pink, but that part isn’t important. It’s sitting in paper that’s been hand-painted to look like the rippling surface of a lake and the frosting is done with the same detail. The frosting is white and probably the creamiest thing Arthur’s ever seen, the peaks brushed with a light blue and the valleys with cerulean to match the paper. Sitting atop the whipped frosting is a base of fondant leaves, rounded and nestled together, carefully shaded even where they’re covered by the crowning glory of the entire piece.

There are three delicate fondant flowers sitting cozy on the leaves. Arthur can tell without even inspecting them that each petal was shaped and painstakingly painted individually before being placed to create the final, glorious piece.  It’s a water lily, but it’s smudged and imperfect in a way that makes it clear that it’s not _just_ a water lily- it’s a water lily straight out of a Monet and it’s beautiful.

“Why would Eames send Arthur a cupcake if they hate each other? Is it some kind of taunt?”

Ariadne’s squeals snap Arthur out of his trance and he listens as he reverently places the cupcake in a plastic container.

“Because he’s a jerk and a dream crusher,” Nash grumbles and Arthur actually feels a flicker of affection for the greasy punk, even if he’s only taking Arthur’s side because he’s still a little afraid that Arthur’s keeping bodies in his office.

“For three beautiful months it was like Arthur was a real person with a real human heart and then that jerk told Arthur who he really was and took it all away. I hate him.”

“Oh my _God_! What, are you saying they dat-“

“NASH, HAIRNET!”

“You can’t even see me! Hell hath no fury like a baker betrayed,” Nash grumbles. "Sometimes, if it wasn't for how much he hates Eames, I'd think he might be a robot."

"He can be kind of mechanical, huh? I mean, I pour things out of cans for a living and I ruin a shirt a show even with an apron, but he never has a spot on him. The other day I watched him make a German Chocolate cake wearing these cream slacks and not. A. Spot."

Arthur smiles to himself as their conversation is effectively derailed and places the cupcake next to the other ninety-one already collected there – one for every day of the last three months.

...

The night before filming, Arthur finds himself too wired to sleep so he stays after closing to do inventory, but sends Nash home – Arthur is one of those few people that can say with a straight face that he doesn’t need a full eight hours every night, Nash is not. Arthur needs him at his best tomorrow. He’s a good baker, knows all the recipes by heart, but when he gets tired he cuts corners and Arthur really doesn’t want to have to kill him over a skipped step. Then he’d have to train an entirely new assistant.

The crew had come by that morning to do Arthur’s introduction and he’d stood with his arms crossed behind the counter the entire time. Luckily for him, it was short because, as Dom said, the audience already knows him and loves to hate him. Arthur has no real interest in trying to change that.

“My name is Arthur Moore and I own On Point Desserts. There are six locations across the country, but this shop in Los Angeles was my first. I started the business with just enough money to pay three months’ rent after I got back from studying to be a pastry chef in Paris and I slept in my office for a year. All of my hard work has paid off though. I’m one of the most renowned pastry chefs in the United States and _usually_ I’m behind the judges’ panel on Cupcake Wars.”

Arthur couldn’t keep his face from scrunching up like there was a bad taste in his mouth when he said that line and they’d had to do several takes before the director gave up and promised to edit it out later somehow.

“When I was offered the chance to compete on this All-Star episode of Cupcake Wars, I couldn’t turn it down. It’s for a good cause and it gives me a chance to show the audience that I do know what I’m talking about when I’m tearing people’s cupcakes apart on the panel.”

“Say the part about the penguins.”

“Shut up, Dom. No.”

“ _Arthur_.”

“ _Dom_ ”

“Will you both shut up? This whole crew is going to be here all day at this rate. And would someone tell that kid to quit lurking behind Arthur like that? It’s creepy.” The director had stalked off for a cigarette break and Arthur had told Nash to go pretend to stack a display or something and to keep the Chester the Molester grin off of his face.

“For my assistant today, I’ve chosen Nash. He’s the manager of On Point L.A. and assistant baker. He’s been my longest and most loyal employee. I’ve only fired him three times in about six years. I even had a plaque made to reward him for his achievement.”

There really is a plaque on the wall. It resembles the awards given to businesses that make it a whole year without a work-related injury, but it says – Andrew Nash, for going a whole year without getting fired.

“If I make it – Seriously? _If_? This is bullshit.”

“Don’t swear on camera.”

“Fuck you, Dom. I’m _going_ to be competing for the WWF- the World Wildlife Fund- in the final round-“

“Say it.”

“No!”

“Say the line about the penguins, Arthur!”

“Fine! I like penguins, because they are nature's gentlemen. As the most sharply dressed of all the Animal Kingdom, I do not want to see them extinct. Also, Dom Cobb is an obsessive-compulsive asshole.”

“Okay! That’s a wrap, I can edit that last line out, let’s get to the other bakery while the sun’s still out.”

Dom gave Arthur the evil eye until he was all the way out the door and had to finally look where he was going after walking sideways into a kid with his arms full of equipment. After that, Arthur had opened his doors and spent the rest of the day in a calming flurry of activity. Now, though, he’s alone and his mind is wandering, mostly to the fact that for the first time in ninety-two days, there was no cupcake delivered. He can’t help but suppose that it’s a message, maybe that Eames has finally given up at whatever it was he was trying to accomplish with the desserts in the first place. Mostly he tries not to feel disappointed.

He turns on the little television he keeps on his desk, hoping Yusuf’s show is on. It’s informative without being boring, but not something he’ll regret tuning out - perfect white noise. But what he catches is a teaser for the upcoming special episode.

‘ _In three weeks, forget everything you thought you knew about cupcakes-_ ’

The camera cuts to Mal with a shocked expression. Arthur remembers that, a girl had dropped her entire bowl of batter and had to start over with fifteen minutes to go.

‘ _Because these celebrity bakers are going to show you that you don’t know sugar.’_

The camera cuts to Dom looking surprised and Arthur looking smug in one of his introduction scenes.

Arthur already has his phone out and a text message to Dom open before his disembodied voice has even finished its spiel on the T.V. Arthur doesn’t understand why Saito lets Dom write his own stuff. His puns are terrible. He leans back in his chair and begins typing and he’s almost distracted enough to miss the jingle of the bell over the front door before it’s muffled, but not quite. He reaches for the stun gun he keeps in a drawer in his desk – bakeries aren’t exactly a hot spot for late night robberies, but he would be a fool to be unprepared – and launches out of his chair at the exact moment the intruder sneaks up to his office door.

“Darling, don’t shoot!” The intruder is still in the shadows, but Arthur would recognize that voice anywhere. He’s heard it enough on T.V. since the Food Network has been playing every special they’ve made with Chef Eames around the clock in preparation for the show, but that’s not why it’s ingrained in Arthur’s brain.

The shadow gives him a little finger wave. Arthur doesn’t put down the gun.

“You’re banned from this store.”

“Well aware of that, love. S’why I jimmied the lock and let myself in. Didn’t think you’d be too keen on opening the door for me.” The shadow brandishes a small pocket knife before flipping it closed and stuffing it into his back pocket.

“That makes sense. I'll be sure to mention it when I apply for the restraining order,” Arthur says.

The shadow grins at him and steps through the doorway and into the light so that he’s not a shadow anymore. Arthur’s finger twitches on the stun gun’s trigger.

“I’d ask if that was a gun in your pocket or if you’re just happy to see me, but you’re making that quite difficult by insisting on aiming the gun at me.”

“Not aiming my weapon at an unwanted intruder defeats the purpose of even having the weapon.”

“I’m not asking you to lower _all_ of your weapons, darling, just the one that’s not in your pants.”

Arthur’s _weapon_ does not twitch even a little bit at the way that Chef Eames is leering at him. It is with great self-control that Arthur resists pulling the trigger on the stun gun and sets it down on the desk.

“There are so many reasons why you deserve to be shot right now,” he grumbles.

“Pull out the big gun and I’ll let you _shoot_ me all night.”

“That’s weak.”

“Well, I’m sorry, Arthur, but I’ve been slaving away all day and the part of my brain that is in charge of creating sex metaphors on the spot is running a bit slow at the moment. The offer stands, though.”

Arthur ignores this. He does not want anything to do with Eames’s sex metaphors or any sort of honest feelings that may be behind them.

“Why are you here? Couldn’t wait until tomorrow to begin the taunting?”

Eames’s face falls into a frown. “While you do make pushing your buttons extraordinarily easy, I just came to wish you luck tomorrow.”

“You broke into my shop after dark to wish me luck…”

“Despite what your unimaginative little pet name for me may lead people to believe, sometimes my intentions are good. Like the day we met, for example-“

“Don’t. I don’t want to talk about that.”

“Are you ever going to let me apologize?”

“No.”

Eames huffs out a breath of air and rolls his eyes, pursing his lips. Arthur does not stare at the way they wrinkle. Eames’s lips take up half of his face, which is ridiculous on a man and not at all the most erotic thing in the world. The fact that Arthur knows what those lips look like wrapped around a cannoli, cream squirting out the end to catch on his chin-

Eames is talking and Arthur has no idea what he’s said.

“…and so here.”

Eames holds out a very recognizable bakery box and Arthur has to consciously keep himself from snatching it. Arthur carefully peers inside, already expecting his daily cupcake and he’s not disappointed. This one is not like the others in that there is no obvious reference for it. In Arthur’s fridge there is a peanut butter cupcake with purple frosting and an aged and sun-bleached cow skull made of fondant – O’Keefe, a cinnamon cake dwarfed by the brown and yellow sunflowers atop it – Van Gogh, a white cake with white frosting and the most spectacular display of sugar manipulation Arthur’s ever seen, drops of color splashing onto the frosting as if they’d just been thrown from a paintbrush – Pollock. There are fairytales – Snow White’s apple, Cinderella’s slipper, and poems – golden leaves for Frost and a sleeping tiger for Blake. There’s even a fully detailed Trojan Horse. Arthur has been able to put a name to every cake Eames has sent him, but nothing immediately springs to mind for this one.

“Don’t think too hard on it, darling. Wouldn’t want you hurting yourself before tomorrow. It’s just for luck.”

Arthur scowls but looks again. It’s a field of four leaf clovers, the largest one no bigger than his thumbnail. They’ve all been individually molded and painted and placed and there are impossibly delicate white blossoms peaking up through the green. If Eames had done nothing but work on this all day it still would have taken him most of the night before as well.

“Goddamnit,” Arthur says.

He makes sure to put the cupcake next to the fridge – which he will _not_ be opening in Eames’s presence- and out of harm’s way and puts the stun gun back in its drawer. Then, ignoring the perplexed look on Eames’s face, he proceeds to plaster himself to the man’s front and kiss him breathless, well aware those lips are good for something more than forming words that Arthur doesn’t want to hear.

“I hate you so much,” Arthur says, just before he pushes Eames down on the desk and straddles his hips. “If you breathe a word of this to _anyone_ tomorrow, I will disembowel you with a frosting knife.”

“Mum’s the word, darling,” Eames promises. Eames is a liar and Arthur can’t believe anything he says, but he’s too busy trying to get them both naked to point that out now.

This isn’t the first time that Arthur has defiled this particular piece of furniture, or any flat surface in this particular room, or any flat surface in the entire shop. It is, in fact, the fourth time that sex has occurred on this desk. Eames has been involved every time. In order to keep his shop cleaner than even city health codes mandate it be, and to help cleanse his soul after breaking down and letting Eames fuck him over the front counter, Arthur goes through a lot of bleach. The rise in bleach purchases has probably not helped Nash get over the idea that there are bodies in Arthur’s refrigerator.

In Arthur’s defense, much of the defiling of the shop came before Arthur found out that Eames is a lying, manipulative douchenozzle. Unfortunately for Arthur’s ego, the rest has occurred after. He is much better at hating Eames when he doesn’t have to look him in the eye, or at his mouth, or his arms, or… any of him really. Arthur cannot be faulted for saying that there is a certain attractiveness about Eames that is like kryptonite to his willpower, not that he would ever actually say that… out loud.

The first time they fucked in the office, they had been dating for a month and a half and couldn’t keep their hands off of each other. The second time was a month and a half after that and in their haste they innocently left the T.V. on. This ended in a nasty case of blue balls for both parties and the end of their relationship. The third time was a moment of weakness on Arthur’s part exactly one week post-break and resulted in the banning of Chef Eames from all On Point locations currently in operation and any to become operational in the future. Specificity is important when dealing with someone as conniving as Eames.

This is the fourth time. Arthur will bask in an orgasmic glow that is unachievable under any other circumstances, and he’s tried, for a few minutes before he starts hating himself and convinces himself that the entire thing was just a ploy of Eames’s to shake him before the competition, clever bastard. All of that is moot, though, with Arthur’s back against the desk, his skin sweat-slick against the wood, Eames’s cock driving into him with the aid of vegetable oil because Arthur stopped keeping lube in the drawer as a deterrent to any future sexual encounters with Eames. Eames whispers a bunch of filthy things into Arthur’s ear that he strives to ignore for the sake of his own sanity, instead listening for the delicious slap of skin on skin.

The thing is Eames is gorgeous. He is also ridiculously talented, though Arthur will never be caught giving voice to that opinion, but when Arthur first met Eames, all he knew was that there was a beautiful man in his shop wrapping lips made for sinning around a freshly baked cannoli. And until he had finished the pastry and licked _every bit of cream_ from the sides of his mouth and the tips of his fingers, all Arthur could think about were those lips wrapped around _his_ cannoli. There followed a week of pastry themed foreplay – what Arthur chose to bake special that week revolved entirely around what he deemed in his masturbatory fantasies would look the most pornographic in the beautiful man’s mouth – before they abandoned all pretenses and fell into a relationship that seemed too good to be true. Which it _was_.

Arthur allots himself just as much blame as he deserves and lets the rest fall squarely on Eames’s broad and well-shaped shoulders. Arthur shouldn’t have let himself be overwhelmed by Eames’s charisma and wit, or his muscles and chest hair, and especially not by the fact that he was absolutely as skilled at sucking Arthur’s cock as he was at sucking the cream out of that cannoli. He should have done more research… _any_ research and he would have found out the truth immediately. But Eames didn’t _tell_ Arthur the truth, so really, he _is_ the bad guy here.

Once Eames collapses with a grunt on top of Arthur, spent and heavy, Arthur allows himself a few moments of masochistic pleasure at being fully enveloped by the other man before he neatly rolls out from under him, letting Eames fall onto the desktop and smack his nose into the wood with a thud. Arthur smiles as he retrieves the baby wipes that he hasn’t yet disposed of. There are a million reasons why he could need baby wipes in his office other than cleaning cum off of his stomach, he just hasn’t thought of any yet.

“Very nice, Arthur,” Eames says, gingerly rubbing his nose.

“You’re still banned,” Arthur says in lieu of something else like ‘I’m sorry’ or ‘I miss you’ or ‘Why’d you have to be such a dickbag and break my heart’.

Once upon a time there would have been cuddling and sweet-nothings and improper usage of chocolate sauce and frosting, but now Arthur is already dressing before Eames has even sat up completely. It’s going to take a lot of scrubbing to get rid of the imprint left behind by Eames’s ass, not so much out of the wood as Arthur's memory.

“Of course I am. It would be silly to think that just because we’ve had mind-blowing sex… multiple times despite your declaration of undying hatred, anything would have changed.”

Eames looks like a kicked puppy. Arthur doesn’t feel bad. He doesn’t.

“Has the fact that you lied to me for three months changed?”

Eames brightens like he thinks this is an opening. “It was really more of an omission than an outright fib…”

“You came into my shop and seduced me with baked goods and let me find out you owned the bakery rivaling my business from an episode of Throwdown _three months later_!”

“To be fair, the pastry seduction was really more your ploy, darling. I can’t help that I’m sexy when I eat. Lady Gaga says I was born this way.”

“Get out. Out!”

“ _Arthur_ , I meant to turn off the telly, but I was understandably distracted by your very naked rear.”

“That’s it! Our entire relationship was a sham. A ruse you used to scope out the competition. I didn't mean anything to you.”

“Darling…”

“The show isn’t called Cupcake Fun Time. This is war, Mr. Eames, and you can’t throw me off my game with your lucky cupcakes and your blitz sex attacks.”

“Now wait, you kissed me-“

“Semantics! I have the superior skill and strategy. Tomorrow the better baker will be decided and this,” Arthur gestures between them, “whatever this is, will be over. Forever.”

“Right then. I suppose I’ll just take my lucky cupcake and go, shall I?” Eames stands, still naked, and makes to reach for the cupcake.

“Leave the cupcake," Arthur says, grabbing it and holding it tightly to his chest. "It was a gift. You can’t take back a gift.”

He doesn’t miss Eames’s smirk, but he pretends to.

“Well, I suppose I’ll see you on the battlefield, Chef Moore.”

Eames gathers his clothes and shoes and starts to walk toward the door.

“Just so you know, and you may not believe me but I’m not about to stop trying, it wasn’t a sham. None of it was.” He pauses just long enough to step into his pants and then he's gone, looking entirely too confident for a man who's about to face the streets of L.A. with cum still sticky on his skin.

...

“Today four bakers are competing in a grueling competition and one by one, they will be eliminated as they are judged on taste, presentation, and the final competition in which the last two bakers will each have to wow the judges with a display worthy of their individual charities. Who will survive today’s cupcake war?

“Hey, I’m Dominic Cobb and today is a perfect day for a cutthroat cupcake battle. But today we’re doing something a little different and you’ll see some familiar faces out on the battlefield and some unfamiliar faces behind the judges’ panel. Overseeing our battle today will be regular judge Mal," Dom chokes. "I’m sorry.”

“Oh, Dominic _please_ ,” Mal moans and buries her head in her hands, careful not to smudge her makeup.

“Ahem, it’s alright, I’m alright. Mallorie Miles, co-owner of Miles and Miles of Macaroons, as well as special guest judge, Robert Fischer, dessert critic for the Los Angeles Times. Now, usually Mal- _oh Mal_ \- is joined on the panel by Chef Arthur Moore, owner of On Point Desserts, but _today_ Arthur is amongst our competitors. Today’s war is a battle of the baking giants, an all-star ambush, a Food Network fracas. At the end of the day, the two best bakers in this room will go head to head to win ten thousand dollars for the charity of their choice.

“Battling today alongside Arthur are Food Network favorites: Domestic Diva Ariadne Anistakas,” Dom pauses, Ariadne’s pre-filmed monologue will be edited in later. “The man with all the answers, Yusuf Verma, and a fresh face who’s bound to become a household name before this episode is even over, Chef Eames, owner of Forging Cupcakes and star of several Food Network specials already.”

Arthur bristles and folds his arms over his chest. He doesn’t know what Eames’s monologue is like and he won’t know until the show airs. He just bets it’s full of inappropriate innuendo and subtle jabs at his competition – mainly Arthur. The heavy-lidded smirk that Eames gives him during the pause does a lot to reinforce those thoughts.

“This is an incredibly important battle and with that in mind, I’d like to introduce our very special guest judge – Food Network president, Hayato Saito.”

“I am very much looking forward to the results of today’s competition.” Saito looks less like a man who’s about to indulge in the greatest wet dream of dieters everywhere and more like an eight year old boy with a magnifying glass, an ant hill, and a sunny day.

“And that’s not our last surprise! Today’s theme is something unlike anything we’ve done before.”

Everyone tenses.

“Inception,” says Saito.

“What,” says Arthur, voice flat.

“Inception is the birth of an idea, that first spark that leads to something great.”

“What,” Arthur says again.

“Today’s battle will require our competitors to delve deep within themselves and be more creative than they’ve probably ever had to be before…” Dom trails off in his dramatic announcer’s voice and steps to the side to reveal the secret ingredients. At first it looks like a random jumble of crap Dom probably found in a test kitchen pantry, but then he explains what it is they’re expected to do.

It is the vaguest challenge ever issued in the history of the entire show. Behind Dom, there are several examples of traditional “comfort foods”, none of which look like they have any business being anywhere near a cupcake let alone in one.

“It is your job to not only turn one of these meals into a delicious dessert, but you must also bring a fresh and innovative twist to your cake that the judge’s won’t be expecting. Competitors, this is cupcake wars.”

That’s the cue for them all to race over to the theme display and for Dom to lean casually against the panel and make puppy dog eyes at Mal until it’s time to throw out one of his patented one liners.

“This is ridiculous,” Arthur mutters under his breath, glaring at a casserole dish filled with macaroni and cheese. He doesn’t mean for anyone to hear him, but of course Eames does.

“Do try to use your imagination a little, darling. I would like a bit of competition. Keeps me on my toes.” Eames winks at him before rushing to his station, his assistant, Tadashi, already stacking ingredients on the table.

Arthur thinks a corning ware of hot cheese to the back of the head would keep him on his toes just as well, but he keeps that to himself… potential lawsuits and a roomful of witnesses and all. Ariadne hovers near a plate of corn bread and a bowl of chowder and Arthur mouths at her to go ahead. The cornbread cupcake he described to her won’t be impressive enough to make it look odd when she doesn’t make it through and she’s got to figure out a way to incorporate the chowder. Good luck there. Arthur doesn’t even see what dish Yusuf’s leaning to, he doesn’t care. He’s got forty five minutes to make a cupcake out of macaroni and cheese _and_ make it a million times better than whatever Eames comes up with.

Arthur rushes over to his section, where Nash is setting up whilst simultaneously glaring at Eames and Tadashi with one eye squeezed shut. When Eames looks up and smiles at him, Nash makes a hand gesture that Arthur doesn’t recognize and spits at the ground.

“What? What is that? You can’t spit in the kitchen, Nash!”

“I’m giving him _the eye_! He’s cursed now!”

“Nash, you’re from Bakersfield! You can’t curse anybody!” Which is really too bad, Arthur thinks.  
The first round goes deceptively smoothly. Nash doesn’t try to curse anyone else and he even wears a hairnet without complaining… too much. Arthur gets his cupcakes finished and plated with seconds to spare and they look perfect, just hopefully they taste that way too. He refuses to look at Eames’s finished product until he absolutely has to. When they’re all standing in front of the judge’s panel, Arthur edges in between Yusuf and Ariadne so that he won’t have to stand next to Eames. He’s aware that his ability to control himself when in close proximity of the man is questionable, and so, for the safety of everyone in the kitchen, he chooses to stay as far away as possible.

Yusuf is first. Since Arthur knows that Yusuf isn’t going to make it past this round, he mostly tunes him out. He’s made a green curry cupcake with coconut butter cream frosting and apparently some mix of spices that has Saito looking half asleep- which is also his orgasm-in-my-mouth face and since Arthur wasn’t listening, it’s a toss up if the cupcake is good or bad. Ariadne made the cornbread cupcake with a clam sauce in the center and the honey butter cream frosting. The judges don’t hate it, but Arthur’s sure he won’t be trying it anytime soon.

When it’s his turn, Arthur straightens and casts a misguided look at Eames who’s watching him with hooded eyes. But Arthur doesn’t let that throw him off his game, no he does not.

“My inspiration was the macaroni and cheese. You have a cheese cake cupcake, which is a pound cake base into which I mixed ricotta, applewood smoked cheddar, and some finely diced truffles. It’s topped with a brie butter cream and garnished with a gala apple slice, candied bacon bits, and a few pieces of bow tie pasta fried in the candied bacon grease and truffle oil.”

The judges take their bites and Fischer looks like he’s about to melt out of his chair, definitely a good sign. Saito actually smiles, or comes as close to it as he ever does, and Mal glares at her plate like it’s done something to offend her.

“I would eat this as a meal!” Robert gushes.

“Very nice work, Chef,” Saito says.

“Acceptable,” says Mal and Arthur returns her glare full-force.

Dom just nods like he tasted the cupcake too and Mal’s less-than-emphatic response to it is perfectly on target. He’s going to text Dom and tell him exactly how spineless he is just as soon as Eames presents his cupcake… which Arthur somehow forgot has to happen. He used to be better at thinking nasty things about multiple people at one time. He’s getting sloppy.

“I once heard a comedian ask just how bad a nation’s food has to be if dousing it in vinegar actually makes it better,” Eames starts.

“Seriously Eames? An anecdote?” Arthur hisses, but Eames ignores him.

“That joke is immediately what popped into my mind when I saw that plate of fish and chips and I knew that I had to restore some dignity to the fine cuisine of my little island nation.”

“Little island nation? Can you even get away with saying that?”

“England is an island, darling,” Eames says to him with all the condescending patience of a second grade teacher.

“I don’t need a geography lesson, Eames. I just think it’s ridiculous to try and humble yourself using a nationality that within the last century still had _empire_ attached to it.”

“Really, Arthur. I didn’t make a peep when you were presenting your creation.” Eames sounds pained. Arthur wants to pinch him until he starts acting like an actual human being… but that could take forever.

“Probably because I didn’t waste everyone’s time with stupid stories!”

“Gentlemen,” Saito warns and Arthur grumbles, but backs down.

“Thank you, Saito. Now on to the cupcake. I give you a potato and porter cupcake, the center of which has been soaked with whisky and the entire thing beer battered in a stout porter and dropped into a fryer. I’ve topped it with a whisky and goat cheese frosting, drizzled a bit of malt vinegar over the entire thing, and garnished it with a little fondant pint. If you’ll also notice, the cupcake itself is a rich brown while the frosting is a lighter and creamier shade, much like a properly poured porter should look.”

“This isn’t the presentation round, show-off,” Arthur mutters and Eames just smiles, the one that doesn’t show any teeth, the one that means he’s feeling particularly proud of himself.

Arthur almost has to be thankful for Mal, because she’s the only judge up there that does this week after week and she’s the only one who speaks up about the complete lack of fish in Eames’s cake.

“Your presentation is masterful, Chef Eames, but I am not finding any cod in my cake. Fish and chips is made with cod, no?”

“Well yes, but fish is not an ingredient that lends itself well to desserts,” Eames tries to save himself while Arthur silently cheers.

“I am sorry to say this, but your cupcake, while delicious and most likely alcoholic, failed to incorporate your entire dish. It was a good attempt but I cannot say it was a success.”

“Eames’s cupcake may have had a B.A.C – that’s batter alcohol level- well over a .08, but the judges found it _fishy_ that he ignored a major ingredient. Can he be saved or is that enough to knock him out of the competition? Find out when we come back on Cupcake Wars!”

Eames actually looks crestfallen. Arthur hates Dom so much sometimes.  
   
...

Ariadne and Yusuf go down after the first round just like they’re supposed to. The elimination of two contestants when there should only be one is explained away by the extreme cutthroat nature of the episode and then they’re paired up. Arthur tries very hard to ignore Eames smirking at him on the other side of the room, already over his misstep and ready to push ahead. Arthur does not admire his resilience.

For the cameras, he’s obligated to pretend like he’s just now coming up with his next three cupcakes even though Nash and Ariadne already know and have already made the cupcakes that Arthur is determined to do. He feels like an asshole acting frenzied and flustered when in reality all he wants is to get started. Eames is on his own side of the kitchen, waving his arms and hamming it up. Arthur refuses to be intimidated by the fact that the camera probably loves Eames, at least something does, because Arthur most definitely does not. Dom announces the start of the round by telling them to "make something edible into something _incredible_ " and Arthur mimes shooting himself in the head before turning to his team.

“Alright, here’s the deal. We’re doing the Strawberry Lemonade Bar cupcake, the-“

“What about red velvet?”

“Mint Cho- what? No. Ariadne, don’t talk.”

“But red velvet is really popular right now. Betty Crocker even makes a mix!”

“We’re not doing red velvet! There is a plan! Do not deviate from the plan!”

“Seriously, I wouldn’t make suggestions unless you want to see the seventh circle of Hell firsthand,” Nash whispers conspiratorially in her ear and Arthur can already feel the steam coming out of his ears.

“Mint. Chocolate. Coffee. Cupcake. And the Black Forest Tuxedo cupcake. Nash, you’re on frosting and filling. Ariadne, get started on the garnishes then help Nash. I’m on batter.”  Arthur is halfway to in his zone when Eames rudely pulls him back out of it.

“Would you like to make a wager, darling?”

“No.”

“Oh, come now. Let’s make this fun.”

“Your dedication to achieving the impossible is impressive.”

“Arthur! I do so appreciate the lovely compliments you throw my way.”

“Focus on your cupcakes, Mr. Eames.”

The fervor with which Arthur is beating the eggs in his bowl is bordering on abusive, but it’s the only way he can keep from pitching them across the room at Eames’s head. He just has to make it through the next seventy five minutes and then the two hours after that and this whole hellish experience will be over. But of course, nothing could ever be so easy.  The kitchen is far from silent and Arthur is _definitely not_ straining to hear what’s happening on the other side of the kitchen, but he can’t help but pick up some of Eames’s instructions every so often.

-“Tadashi, pass me the cocoa, there’s a lad.”

-“Yusuf, how’s that raspberry syrup coming?”

-“Come check the color of this batter for me, is this red enough?”

Arthur can’t be sure without actually seeing Eames’s cupcake for himself, but those ingredients sound familiar. But there’s no guarantee that they’re all destined to end up in the same cake. He starts grinding his teeth sometime around hearing Eames ask Yusuf to taste his fudge sauce.

“Arthur, give me the butcher knife.” He glares at Ariadne for interrupting his attempt to make Eames’s fudge sauce explode with his thoughts alone.

“Why on Earth do you need a butcher knife?”

“I don’t need a butcher knife, but I am incredibly freaked out by the death grip that _you_ have on that one.” She points to his hand on the table and he’s surprised to find that, yes, he does seem to have a white-knuckled grip on the handle of a very large knife. He’s not even sure where he got it.

“Right, well I’m done with it so it’s all yours. Ah, check on the cakes in the oven, I’m just going to go… to the stove, to start my drizzle.”  
   
“Alone, darling? I’d be happy to lend you a hand, but from experience, I'm sure it will end up quite more spectacular than a drizzle.”

When Arthur feels Eames’s palm graze his ass as the other chef moves in to check on one of his own pots, his tenuous control shatters.

“Cut! _CUT!_ ”

“What is this? You can’t call cut! He can’t call cut!” The director is actually pulling hair from his head at this point.

“Please calm down, Mr. Browning.” Saito raises a hand from the judges’ table. “Chef Moore, you can’t call cut.”

“Fine, whatever. Don’t cut. Just keep him away from me or I cannot be held responsible for the waste of a perfectly good reduction by drizzling it on his _face_.”

Eames frowns.

“I would rather you drizzle something with a higher protein value on my face.”

“ _DAMNIT EAMES_ ”

Dom’s able to intervene before Arthur does something drastic, like punch Eames in his stupidly pretty face or worse, kiss him.

“Okay, okay. Let’s keep the war to the cupcakes. Eames, stop sexually harassing Arthur. Arthur, stop threatening such explicit bodily harm to people, it’s unsettling.” Arthur stomps back to his table, taking his drizzle with him.

…

Despite Arthur’s outburst, he still manages to get his cupcakes plated with seconds to spare. Even with their team leader throwing a temper tantrum, Ariadne is just as efficient as she promised and Nash by now knows to keep his head down.

“Well _that_ was an eventful round. Things have heated up in this kitchen in more ways than one and round two saw our chefs’ blood boiling along with their reductions. How will the raised tension lend itself to the challengers’ creations? Let’s see their presentations and find out.”

Arthur goes first again and Dom has to keep shooting him glares when he’s off camera to remind him not to clench his fists as he speaks.

“I’m competing for the World Wildlife Fund and my cupcakes each represent an endangered animal that the WWF is working to save. My first cupcake, the Bengal tiger cupcake, is a strawberry-lemonade-bar cupcake. It’s a very moist lemon cake with a strawberry filling. The cake turns orange as it becomes saturated with the strawberries’ natural syrup. The cake is rolled in a crust made from almonds and pie crust, topped with an almond meringue which I’ve drizzled with an Amaretto reduction dyed black with squid ink to represent the tiger’s stripes.

“My second cupcake is a mint-chocolate-coffee cupcake. It’s a milk chocolate cake infused with Bailey’s Irish Cream and Crème de Menthe. There is melted milk chocolate in the center of the cake and it’s topped with a Bailey’s buttercream frosting, dusted with ground coffee beans, and garnished with a dark chocolate frog.

“Finally, my last cupcake is the penguin cupcake. It’s a black forest tuxedo cupcake, German chocolate cake swirled with traditional New York cheesecake, topped with white chocolate cream cheese frosting. Chocolate fudge was used to make bowties, buttons, and jackets on the frosting.”

He feels better. He feels confident. He made good, unique cupcakes and even though Eames is standing right next to him smelling like sugar and he can still feel the imprint of Eames’s hand on his ass, his head is in the game.

“I must admit I am impressed, Arthur. I was certain that your, how shall I say, little meltdown would have set you behind, but, it seems, you have managed to succeed. Each of your cakes is as full of taste as I would expect from you, but your presentation was very simple. I was not wowed.”

Arthur forces himself to smile instead of regaling Mal with a list of his favorite names to call her in his head. When they give Jerry Springer a cooking show though...

“I don’t think Mal is giving you enough credit for your flavors. These cupcakes are delicious. Each flavor just jumps out at me with every bite. There is nothing missing in any of these cupcakes. The presentation was simple, yes, but the flavors more than make up for it.”

Thank you, Robert Fischer.

“Very impressive, Chef Moore.”

Arthur’s not sure what to make of Saito, but he feels good about the cupcakes he’s presented so he chooses to take Saito’s mysterious little half smile as a good sign.

Beat that, Eames.  
   
So of course he does.

Arthur keeps completely silent as Eames’s cupcakes are brought to the table. The sound of his teeth grinding can’t be heard over the hot air coming out of Dom’s mouth, so he knows he’s safe.

“The judges were less than impressed with your cupcake in the taste round, Chef Eames, but you’ve said yourself that your strengths lie in presentation. Will your fondant forte be enough to put you ahead of Arthur’s decidedly delicious desserts?”

A cameraman decides that’s the perfect moment to pan in on Arthur’s expression. Arthur sees Dom cringe, expecting the worst moment of the poor cameraman’s life to be imminent, but Arthur has calmed down and he only glares at the camera hard enough to crack the lens. Just because he’s behaving himself for the time being doesn’t mean he has to give the director anything he can actually use. He is aware that he’s being unfair to Browning, who’s done absolutely nothing wrong, but he also doesn’t care, because Eames’s cakes are now on the table and Arthur has no idea where the man found the time, but there are nine tiny sculptures in front of the judges. Nine tiny _sculptures_.

“Cheers, darling,” Eames says to Arthur, tossing him a wink, before bowing to the judges like a fucking dandy. “To compliment dear Arthur’s fabulous display, I present you with three cakes representing the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. Like I was inspired by my country of origin in my first cake, my adoptive city, the great City of Angels, is truly at the heart of this presentation. For the Aquarium of the Pacific, my first cake is a blackberry and blood orange sherbet cupcake. You have a simple vanilla cake with a blood orange marmalade float added before baking. It’s topped with fresh blackberries and on top of those there is a curious octopus made of blackberry marshmallow frosting with tiny blackberry eyes.”

Because of the blackberry juice the octopus is a red violet and one of its legs is clearly shorter than the other. It’s an outdated reference that with Arthur’s luck, everyone will get. Also it’s infuriatingly adorable. That's Arthur's favorite scene in _Finding Nemo_ and Eames knows it.

“ The second cake is a blueberry key lime cupcake. It is a lime and coconut cake with a blueberry and coconut compote in the center, and topped with a white chocolate meringue that has been sprinkled with lime zest. Nestled comfortably in this bed of frosting is a beautiful male peacock. His brilliant blue body is made of white chocolate and coated with an edible iridescent blue paint. His magnificent tail is a creation of blue and gold spun sugar, as are his beak and crest. I am fascinated by the hordes of peacocks that roam the streets of suburban L.A., strutting the pavement like they own it. They are a bit like nature’s drag queens, are they not?”

Arthur clenches his jaw so hard to keep from shouting he’s actually worried he might have cracked a tooth.

“Finally, I give you a red velvet raspberry lava cupcake, a wholly inspired creation.”

“You _bastard_ ,” Arthur hisses, his voice rising to a full-fledged shout by the last syllable. He’s ready to claw Eames’s eyes out but Saito silences him with a look. Eames just smiles because he is a sneak and a cheat and why would that kind of person care about being caught out?

“All’s fair, dearest. Judges, you have a traditional red velvet cake, filled with a warm and gooey raspberry chocolate fudge with whole raspberries and chopped chili peppers. The topping is a dark chocolate cream cheese frosting, tubed to resemble a coiled snake and sprinkled with dried chili flakes to resemble scales. To complete the piece we have the head of a king cobra moulded out of dark chocolate fudge, with Red Hot eyes, poised to strike in honor of the L.A. Zoo.”

Arthur barely listens to the judge’s comments on Eames’s cupcakes. They’re too hard to hear over the blood pounding in his ears, but guessing by the smug as shit grin on Eames’s face, he’s hearing good things about his cupcakes and the cupcake he _stole from Arthur_.  
   
...

Without anyone to eliminate, they immediately go into the third round, beginning with planning out their displays with the carpenters who are cute and competent and two pairs of thick black frames without lenses away from being hipster poster boys. They both plan for three-tiered showpieces, but if the boy can pull off the second level, Arthur’s will be too spectacular for Eames to possibly beat. He wants a horizontally rotating frame for the second tier with shelves that perpetually stay upright so the cupcakes won’t fall over, the ends of it bearing the WWF panda. Arthur is so going to beat Eames’s ass with this display.

He wastes no time getting to work, barking out commands at the assistant bakers and starting on his batters and Eames wastes no time getting back to harassing Arthur.

“Did you enjoy my cupcakes, darling? That last one was specifically for you, you know.”

“Because it was _my recipe_!”

“Not entirely. Your recipe doesn’t have chilies. And you’ve said nothing about my cobra, that was for you as well.”

“Are you comparing me to a venomous snake, Mr. Eames?”

“The king of them!” Eames says cheerfully.

Arthur proceeds to lose his shit entirely by dumping a full mixing bowl of chocolate batter over Eames’s head.

…

When Arthur broke up with Eames, kicking him to the street with his boxers in one hand and a nasty set of blue balls in the other, Eames had responded by giving him the first cupcake the very next day. It was nothing too special, the fondant molded into a red rose, and Arthur would have smushed it in Eames’s stupid, apologetic face, but it was really pretty and Arthur likes nice things. But he should have smushed it, because keeping the cupcake must have given Eames’s hope, if the cupcakes he continued to bring for the rest of the week were of any indication.

After a week of Eames’s puppy dog eyes and lush pout and the way he sounded like he meant it when he said he was sorry, Arthur broke and had sex with him in his office, and then Arthur put his foot down. He put his foot down in his own kitchen far away from Eames and sent Nash to do his dirty work, but the foot was down nonetheless.

He had Nash deliver a very specific cupcake with very specific modifications to its ingredients to Eames’s shop with a note informing Eames that he was banned. This very specific cupcake was Arthur’s Rotten Red Velvet. Arthur usually served it as a petite bunt cake during October, but he’d changed the format this time to accommodate Eames’s special brand of betrayal. He’d also included broken chocolate hearts as a lovely garnish on top of the raspberry cream cheese icing. It was typically a Halloween only dish, the raspberry fudge lava center meant to resemble blood and guts in a lighthearted and appetizing way. It was not meant to be light-hearted or appetizing to Eames.

Eames mostly obeyed the banning, but he'd only upped the ante on the cupcakes he sent, beginning the next day with a hideous and very sad hobo clown.

Arthur had not known and had not cared… _very much_ , what Eames’s opinion of his cupcake was. Until now.

…

The entire kitchen goes silent, the only sound in the whole room is that of batter dripping from Eames’s nose onto the floor. Arthur feels oddly like giggling and pointing out that he’s made an improvement to Eames’s look. This would only actually be true if Eames were naked and Arthur was planning to lick the cupcake batter from more intimate locations on Eames’s body than the parts it’s currently covering, but that’s a private thought that he keeps to himself.

The silence seems to stretch on forever before Eames blinks and licks his lips, setting down a block of chocolate he’d been molding.

“Well then,” he says, just before he splashes marmalade in Arthur’s face, then smears it into the front of Arthur’s sweater.  
   
Arthur hears Dom just manage to call out, “Don’t do it!” and then “I’ll save you, Mal!” before all Hell breaks loose and Cupcake Wars turns into the battle royale of food fights.

“I’ve got your six, boss!” Nash shrieks as he dives into the fray, ripping the hairnet from his head and shaking out his mane, which in a movie with slow motion would have looked awesome, but in real life with sticks of butter flying through the air like cannon fire just looks lame.

Ariadne hops onto a table, an overturned bowl on her head like a helmet, and begins shouting battle commands, gesturing with a wooden spoon like a whip.

Yusuf and Tadashi have overturned a table of their own and are using it as a barricade, re-enacting their own version of trench warfare, only popping their heads over the edge of the table for as many seconds as it takes to lob cups full of goop across the room like sugary grenades.

Saito has calmly pulled an umbrella from nowhere and he and Robert Fischer are currently huddled beneath it, watching the fracas with mild amusement and barely contained boyish glee.

Arthur thinks he hears Browning shout something along the lines of, “Fuck this, I give up,” but he can’t be sure.

Arthur grabs for Eames, shoving handfuls of whatever’s closest into the man’s hair and clothes and face, trying to blot it out with dairy products and fruit compote. Eames retaliates by desperately attempting to get a grip on Arthur’s wrists, but the eggs and oil on his hands are making it a struggle.

“You are a lunatic, Arthur, do you know that?” Eames has to shout to be heard over the din, but Arthur hears him clearly.

“Better a lunatic than a thief and a liar!”

“Oh, bloody Hell, we’re back to that again. For someone so brilliant, you are magnificently dense!”

“If it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck-“

“What on Earth do ducks have to do with anything?”

“If a man lies about who he is and then steals your recipe and uses it on national fucking television, that makes him a _liar_ and a _thief_!”

“If you’re going to bring up silly details like those, I would like to point out that I did not technically lie. I may have omitted-“

“You omitted your entire occupation! For three months!”

“Would you have dated me otherwise?”

“Yes!”

“Really?” Eames stops struggling, Arthur doesn’t and they go down heavy into the muck. Eames lands on top of Arthur, bracing his forearms against the ground to keep from crushing Arthur with his bulk but also to cage Arthur in. Arthur tries to continue struggling, but he only succeeds in sliding around in the brackets made by Eames’s limbs.

“Of course, you idiot. If I’d cared about your shop, I would have gone there myself to check it out. I don’t care about you being competition for me, I care about you lying to me and tricking me and _stealing from me_.”

Eames’s face softens and Arthur thinks about kneeing him in the groin to get free, but it’s such a nice groin and a nut shot in the midst of a food fight seems awfully harsh even for him.

“I only ever wanted your attention, Arthur. I came into your shop because I wanted to meet you, not to spy on you, but then I fell in love with you and I was afraid if you knew who I was, you’d dump me, which you did so I was partially correct in my deception. And the cupcake, darling? I really did do that for you. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, they say.”

“They lie,” Arthur snaps, but then his face softens too. “You love me?”  
   
Eames smiles and kisses Arthur thoroughly, licking sugar and fruit and coconut from his lips. “Darling,” he says fondly, “of course I do. Ninety odd cupcakes, Arthur, and you didn’t figure that out yet?”

“You could have just _said_ it,” Arthur says petulantly. “Excuse me for needing a little specificity.”

Eames just laughs at him and Arthur tries to punch him in the shoulder but fails miserably on account of them both resembling greased pigs.

“I kept them all,” he says and looks away shyly. “That’s what’s in the fridge in my office, not a dead body, despite what Nash thinks.”

“Is it possible that means you love me as well?”

“It might be,” Arthur starts, but then from above them Ariadne gives Xena’s battle cry and leaps through the air to land on Yusuf’s back and Arthur amends his previous statement. “Yes, it’s entirely possible. Probable even.”

“Specificity, Arthur.”

“Fine, I love you. But if you ever lie to me again I will castrate you and make cupcakes out of your balls.”

“Righto, I think that’s enough specificity for one day, don’t you? _Love_?”

“For once, Mr. Eames, I think you might be right”

…

The carpenters come in at the end of the allotted two hours to find a tragic scene before them. Assistant bakers are felled left and right, holding their stomachs and moaning from sugar overload. Ariadne has suspended Yusuf and Tadashi from the ceiling in a licorice rope net and is busy molding Nash’s hair into an impressive faux hawk with frosting for gel. Mal and Dom are clutching each other tightly and whispering terrified nonsense about trains while Saito and Robert Fischer dip their fingers into Arthur’s original bowl of batter and then lick them clean.

Arthur and Eames are missing in action.

...

The All-Star episode of Cupcake Wars is never aired, something about there not being enough footage that wouldn’t be traumatizing to small children available to fill an hour. That and the fact that no one technically _won_. But that doesn’t stop everyone involved from being affected by the experience.

Ariadne and Yusuf partner up on a show set in Papua New Guinea making food out of ingredients that science hasn’t even named yet while they search for a Pterodactyl. She was inspired to make prehistoric buffalo wings by a rerun of Monster Quest, and it’s become a waste of breath to try and break Ariadne of the belief that they still exist in the New Guinea skies. She’s developed a reputation even Anthony Bourdain won’t touch.

Dom’s heroic display in the line of frosting (his words) renews Mal’s love for the man she married and they make plans to renew their vows before two weeks have even passed. Arthur reprises his role as the best man and despite his best efforts to remain stoic, he sniffles through the ceremony and starts crying like a baby the moment he can get away. He likes weddings and he is not ashamed of that. Maybe just a little bit ashamed. No one looks attractive blowing their nose.

Shortly after filming, Forging Cupcakes mysteriously closes with only a small sign declaring “Renovations” to offer any explanation. Baffled customers who make the effort to flip the sign are graciously given walking directions to On Point Desserts. Not that Arthur ever needed the help, but business is booming. Cupcake Wars’ season was technically over when Dom accosted Arthur with the All-Star idea, so he’s spared from having to face the scene of his most disastrous meltdown to date for another few months before he has to go back to the grind of telling other bakers that their food sucks. He takes this time off to create a new cake that he calls the Love is a Gamble Worth Taking Layer Cake. It’s a tongue twister, but it barely takes a month before it’s become his most popular wedding cake. It’s his black forest tuxedo cake and red velvet lava cake combined into one over-complicated mess of deliciousness and always garnished with a white chocolate poker chip and a raspberry hard candy die. It will probably go down as Arthur’s greatest creation and he’s okay with that.

In addition to the new cake, Arthur makes plans to open a second Los Angeles location entirely devoted to cupcakes. He’s still not jumping aboard the cupcake craze wholeheartedly, but that’s where the money is and apparently where his heart is too now. He decides for nostalgia’s sake to move his desk from his original office into the new one and catches Nash making it a bullet point in his guidelines for new employees that the back office is unsafe and most likely unsanitary and should be avoided at all costs. Arthur doesn’t make him take it off.

Arthur’s just putting the finishing touches to the portfolio he’s made so people can have something to peruse while they wait to be helped, when a familiar voice on the television catches his ear. Arthur has posted thirty pictures to the website so far and there are sixty or so more in this book, totaling over ninety of the most incredible cupcakes that can be found in, not just California, but the whole world as far as Arthur is concerned, and he’s not exactly known for being very gracious in his judgments. But Arthur might be a bit biased in this case.

He starts to frame some of the more striking pictures, the ones that are positively mind-blowing, so that he can hang them on the walls and further catch the attention of his future patrons, but surprise stops him short.  Even without the episode, Eames got his show on the Network anyway exactly as he wanted. Once a week he teaches Food fans to make masterpieces with fondant. His cake decorating line can already be found next to Chef Duff’s at crafting and fine food stores everywhere and the other day Arthur saw a t-shirt with a picture of Eames licking frosting off his thumb and winking at the camera in the window of a Hot Topic. So Arthur isn’t surprised to see Eames’s show come on. No, Arthur’s surprise is due to what Eames is _saying_ on this particular episode.  
   
“I’m certain that by now, many of you are wondering what happened to the much talked about All-Star episode of Cupcake Wars that was supposed to star yours truly, and tonight I thought I’d put the questions and rumors to rest. There were some, _technical difficulties_ I supposed you could say, during filming and unfortunately the war ended in a draw. There was a treaty signing and everything to end the carnage. I will tell you that the ultimate bloodbath occurred between myself and one extra prickly Chef Arthur Moore –

Arthur’s not even surprised by Eames needling him on national television; this kind of behavior is par for course with that man. Arthur is shocked into complete stillness and silence by what comes next.

“- And it was, without a doubt, one of the best bloody experiences of my life. I have a lot of admiration for Arthur and I find myself a bit disappointed that he might never hear the praise I lavished upon him in my Cupcake Wars intro. So then, I’ve managed to nick some of the footage from that doomed episode and I’ve decided, in honor of re-opening my shop as a joint venture with my partner of nearly seven months now- though I must admit that three of those months were dedicated to arduous wooing of the man and not _technically_ official – on tonight’s episode of Fondant Forgeries I will be treating you to a peek at the depth of my affections.”  
   
Then he winks at the camera just like he’s winking on the t-shirt. He hasn’t even baked anything yet but somehow there’s frosting for him to lick from his fingers. He’s a whore for the camera and four months ago, Arthur would have turned the T.V. off in disgust, and then turned it right back on again because he’s weak, but tonight he snorts and smirks and, okay he _blushes_.

“I own Forging Cupcakes in Los Angeles. I started baking when I was just a sprog with my nana. It was a way for me to escape the dreadful tedium of the day to day by creating these fantastic pastries. I never thought I’d actually make a living of it, but I wasn’t getting much done with a dual degree in Fine Arts and Art History either so here I am. I moved to L.A. thinking I’d be an artist and discovered this bloody amazing bakery, and it didn’t hurt that the owner was an Adonis in a three piece suit.” And there’s the wink again.

“I am truly honored to be competing against Arthur Moore. It was because of him that I started baking again. I saw true inspiration there, and mind that I said inspiration and not _imagination_ , because that is what ultimately got me moving to open my own shop. I knew that I may not have the same skill set when it comes to taste but I can make food into _art_. Even if I lose tonight, I’ll be happy enough to have gotten the chance to show what I can do against someone as incredible as Arthur. But, of course, I’m not _going_ to lose.”

Arthur snorts again, but then he remembers there’s no one here to actually see him so he can give in to dimple deep smile that’s battling so hard to get out.

“I meant every word of that, darling. Especially the part about not losing, but all of the nice things I said about you as well.”

“Crap! Eames, what are you doing here?” Arthur nearly tumbles out of his chair when Eames sneaks up on him.

“It’s our anniversary, Arthur.”

“Anniversary? We’ve been back together a month.”

“And it’s been the best month of my life.”

Eames sets a cupcake on the desk. He’s smirking, but it’s only eating about half the level of shit as normal. He actually looks a little bit shy. Arthur turns away from Eames to look at the cupcake and his stomach starts to flip flop. It’s a simple vanilla cupcake in a plain white wrapper with regular vanilla frosting, but on top there’s a giant fake diamond ring. A _giant_ diamond ring. It’s possibly the gaudiest and most ridiculous thing that Arthur has ever seen.

“What is this? Do you want me to put this in the portfolio, because it’s not your best work, Eames.” Arthur knows Eames hears the way his voice cracks at the end. He’s not fooling anyone. “This isn’t you proposing, is it?”

“No, darling, _this_ is.”

Arthur slowly turns and finds Eames on one knee, holding up a simple platinum band inset with diamonds of a far more tasteful size.

“Well, I suppose I’ve put you through enough the past four months that I kind of have to give you this, huh?” He says when his heart stops clenching long enough for him to get a breath.

“It will make running this cupcake shop together very awkward if you say no, darling.”

“Then I guess I can’t say no, can I?”

“A little specificity please, Arthur?”

“Yes, Mr. Eames. I’ll marry you.”

Eames grins and envelops Arthur in a bone crushing hug. Then they proceed to reinforce the final bullet point on Nash’s new employee guidelines.

...

A few weeks later, Forging the Point Cupcakes has its grand opening, filmed for a special episode of Eames’s show. It’s probably the happiest day of Arthur’s life, but he knows his wedding will be even better, just as certainly as he knows there won’t be a cupcake in sight.

 _FIN_


End file.
